


Vacation

by Splinter



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Movie(s), Recovery, everything is beautiful but it still hurts sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 21:30:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11322129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splinter/pseuds/Splinter
Summary: “A holiday,” says Max. He makes the word sound familiar, as if this is a concept he’s used to. Furiosa knows about holidays, remembers them from her childhood, but she thought they were days of celebration, marking a particular memory or promise for the future. Not for just not doing anything.Furiosa has a day off, which means time to think.





	Vacation

It had been the Dag’s suggestion, though Capable made sure they took it. 

“Take a break. Just stop, take a day,” the Dag had said, watching Furiosa yawning after a long shift in the garage. She’d nodded at the idea, and left it at that. Three days later, Capable had told her that she and Max wouldn’t be expected on any work shifts tomorrow, that they could spend the time how they liked.

“Let yourselves relax.” She’s talking to Furiosa, mostly. “You don’t have to work all the time. I’ll make sure the crews know they’re not to interrupt you.”

“A holiday,” says Max. He makes the word sound familiar, as if this is a concept he’s used to. Furiosa knows about holidays, remembers them from her childhood, but she thought they were days of celebration, marking a particular memory or promise for the future. Not for just not doing anything. 

“We could go to the gardens,” Furiosa says, back in her room. She finds herself thinking of checks she wants to make to that pump, though she knows that isn’t the point. She starts unbuckling her arm.

“Could spend it in bed,” Max replies, a low, teasing rumble, coming to help her. She isn’t sure if he means for sleep or for sex: he likes both. Max kisses her shoulder, up to her neck, and she stops thinking about tomorrow.

She wakes early the next morning, and lies there considering it. A whole day, all hers, all theirs. It’s a luxury she hadn’t known to hope for, until it happened. It’s only in the past couple of hundred days that they could consider something like this, except in cases of illness or exhaustion. Everybody has a few easy days after the work of the harvest, for instance, but this is different. She can have a day free because there are, this moment, no fires to fight. Things are settled enough, running smoothly enough, that her tasks aren’t urgent. It’s something she’s wary of getting too comfortable about. The wasteland has a way of throwing horrors at the unprepared.

She’s already taking the risk of getting used to things. Beside her, Max is a blanketed hump, almost entirely hidden by the bedclothes: she can barely see his tuft of hair. 

He is not a dignified sleeper. He snuggles. He sprawls out or bunches himself up, curls himself around her in a tangle of limbs. When she’s not trying to unknot the blankets, her heart is full at the abandon of it, the trust. She remembers how defensive he used to be, how still he would lie. She knows he can’t always stay, knows she can’t expect him to. But he keeps coming back, and each time he stays longer, seems to stay more easily.

Looking at him now, what little she can see of him above the covers, she has an idea. Sliding out of bed, she dresses herself quickly – no arm, no boots, just dressed enough to run down to the food hall, leaving Max asleep. 

It’s early enough that there aren’t many people around, but the canteen is open, getting ready to serve the first shift.

“Double ration?” One of the cooks has spotted her, recognised her. 

“For lunch, too,” Furiosa says, carefully, as neutral and calm as she can. The canteen worker – Skimmer, she thinks his name is – grins, obviously approving, and looks over his stock. The tray he eventually passes her is generous. There’s a big handful of green salad leaves, two blocks of bean paste, some berries, a whole dish of potato cakes and a tin cup of jam. This is lavish, even without the lizard jerky she keeps in her room. She looks back up, ready to thank him, and finds him smiling. She blushes. 

She is the bag of nails, an imperator from the bad times, and she’s blushing because someone was pleased to see her happy. It’s so different, being open, letting people help her, letting people know her. Sometimes it’s unbearable. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable but sort of nice, which is how it feels now. She smiles back, awkward, and takes her haul back upstairs, the tray balanced carefully between her hand and the crook of her shortened arm. 

She’d wanted to come and go without waking him, but the lock and the door and the tray make her noisier than she’d meant to be. It’s not a familiar manoeuvre, not something she’s ever needed to do before. The door opens before she’s quite got the hang of it, Max opening it for her, barefoot in his shirt.

He is rumpled and sleepy and soft. She suspects he had woken up already, before she tried the door. He doesn’t look as if he was startled awake, though his hair, never tidy, is wildly bedheaded. She wants to pet it, to pet him, to hold him tight and reassure herself that he’s real. Max takes the tray, putting it down on her table before locking the door. Then he takes her hand and draws her back to bed. 

She hadn’t expected that. After thousands of days as a feral scav, Max tends to eat as soon as he sees food, not trusting that it won’t be taken from him. She likes seeing him relaxed enough to wait. Well, sleepy enough. 

He wants to cuddle, pulling her close. Furiosa gives in to her urge to pet him, stroking her hand over his ribs, letting herself enjoy the sturdiness of his body. She can feel his scars and marks, but he’s so solid, so responsive to touch. He’s still nervous, sometimes. Either of them can startle at a fingertip. Can melt at it, too: she likes giving him teasing light touches until he loses patience and just grabs her, kissing her skin. He likes being held tight, or pressing close to her.

She goes on stroking him, her touch not heavy but firm, feeling him sigh and wriggle. She runs her fingers over lines of bone and muscle, from the bulk of his ribs over his strong waist, down to the heft of his thighs. Stroking back up, she finds the edge of his hipbone, the faint groove running down from it. The groove has been deeper, when he’s been in the desert for a long time. She likes it best when he’s a little fuller, when she knows he’s getting enough water. It also makes cuddling him more comfortable, when there’s some softness at his edges.

It’s a luxury, to have a body like his. Like hers, too. Max must have grown up with near-Before time levels of feeding. Her own childhood in the Green Place had given her a varied, regular diet of fresh food, better than most in the wasteland. It’s made for a strong body, regardless of how it got starved or damaged afterwards. Max’s solidity was built from the bones up. He heals fast.

They’re hoping that more of the Citadel’s people will have the chance to grow up like this, that others might repair some of their past damage. She knows it will take a generation to wipe away Joe’s hierarchies. His decisions have been built into their bodies, wretched and war boy, imperator and milking mother. Though she’s been surprised by how quickly some of the differences have faded. The place has ghosts, but it’s not what it used to be. She hopes that she’s changed too, that she’s capable of change.

She’s still stroking him, but her hand is moving more slowly. He kisses her shoulder, then lets his head rest against her. They’re both drifting off, dozing and waking and dozing again. It’s strange, and strangely easy, having nothing to do.

Under Joe, Furiosa had avoided free time, or made sure she found ways to fill it. Doing nothing had reminded her too much of the enforced idleness of the Vault. Nursing revenge meant that even quiet days weren’t empty. Clawing her way to power, guarding every scrap of opportunity, wasting no chances.

Back then, she had thought fiercely of the Green Place, its sounds and its smells and the rhythm of its days. She’d tried to hang on to it in her mind, even though going over her memories had the effect of turning them into a story, a campfire tale that she only hoped she could still believe in. Then there had been the times when she’d had to push the idea of it away. As she rose, she’d done so much that she didn’t want to be reminded of, so much that turned green memories sour. Those are the things she has a duty to remember now.

It’s not easy for the girls, she knows it’s not easy, but they’re so sure that they can change things. They want to put right the injustices, make their world work without violence, or at least with less violence. Furiosa wishes she had their certainty. As it is, she wonders whether her own presence isn’t an act of violence in itself. 

“Mmmm?” Max is awake again, his arm steady around her. Furiosa realises that she’s tensed up, her whole body stiff with memory. He’s looking at her, concerned, his thumb stroking her hairline as he peers at her face. 

She has no guard against such softness. Suddenly it’s too much, all her armour gone when he looks at her like that. She tries to swallow, to pull herself together, but her mouth feels full of saliva. Her lower lip is wobbling and she can’t control it, can’t control anything. She paws at her face, trying to cover her eyes and her mouth at once. The sound of her own breath shocks her: it’s so obviously a sob.

“Hey, okay…” Max pulls her closer, shuffling up the bed a little so she can put her face against his neck. Once she’s there, she cries and cries and cries, loud and raw and messy, until whatever is making her cry exhausts itself into snuffles. 

Max just holds her for a while, arms wrapped close around her. As her sobs slow down, he strokes her back, nuzzles at her hair. They lie like that, wrapped together, without talking. She’s feeling better, but still too fragile to speak; she doesn’t trust her voice to be steady, and what could she say? At last her stomach rumbles, alarmingly loud. Furiosa giggles, though her laugh ends in a sniffly hiccup.

“Water?” He’s still stroking her, not pulling away. She nods: she’s wasted so much water in tears. Her face is stiff with them, with dried snot too. Max gets up and gets her the cup, with a cloth to wash her face. When she’s done, he gets back into bed with her, still asking no questions. He just opens his arms and lets her curl up in them, keeping her warm. After a while, her stomach rumbles again. This time, they both laugh.

Max brings her the dish of potato cakes, along with the jam and more water. He arranges himself so they’re sitting up, wrapped in the blankets, Furiosa leaning against his chest with dishes on the bed around them. He rests his chin on her shoulder, his stubble bristly, then reaches for a cake.

Furiosa hadn’t planned her picnic like this. But the potato cakes are crispy, fluffy inside – she must tell Skimmer how good they were. And she’s hungry, even though her mouth feels weak and wet from crying.

She and Max both reach for the jam at the same moment. When she lets him go first, he puts a generous spoonful onto a potato cake, then hands it to her to eat. She gives him the last bite, feeling the movement of his jaw as she leans back against him. 

They leave the last cake for later. Furiosa gets up to put the dish back on the tray: there’s plenty of food left. 

“Come back to bed?” Max is being gentle again. This time it’s a comfort, rather than breaking her open. 

“Wasn’t how I thought I’d spend a holiday,” she admits, as she burrows into him. He kisses the top of her head, stroking her back, slow and easy. She’s still limp from tears and relief, but it feels good, his hands running over her: being touched, being known.

“Takes time,” he says at last. “Getting used to it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at [lurkinghistoric](http://lurkinghistoric.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


End file.
